Looking for a market with tens of millions of tourists? The e-cigarette channel in the Middle East and North Africa started from tourism retail?
Recently, the new force of vaping learned a piece of news from overseas. As a large distributor, ANDS has launched a product portfolio of electronic cigarettes in duty-free shops in Morocco this year.
It is reported that ANDS is a large distributor and brand owner, which focuses on disposable electronic cigarettes, closed pods and heated tobacco technologies. It stated that it is “committed to making duty-free shops a one-stop shop for the electronic nicotine delivery industry”.
Its increased coverage of tourism retail is precisely to look at the consumption of tourists in the Middle East and North Africa. It has also expanded its travel retail operations at Marrakech and Casablanca airports this year. Fadi Maayta, ANDS Co-Founder and President, commented: This new [Morocco] development is in line with ANDS’ travel retail expansion and reflects our domestic deployment in the region and beyond. At present, the company has opened a number of travel retail stores in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and Latin America is also in the pipeline.
The data also shows that the tourism data intensity of Middle Eastern countries is obvious.
According to statistics, in the first three quarters of 2022, Saudi Arabia attracted a total of 18 million international tourists, becoming the Arab country with the largest number of international tourists, followed by the United Arab Emirates and Morocco. Like Dubai, in 2022, the sales of Dubai duty-free shops will exceed US$1 billion this year. Moreover, perfume, liquor, gold, cigarettes and tobacco, and electronic cigarette products were the five categories with the highest sales from January to August last year. According to the data at that time, tobacco products reached 98 million US dollars, accounting for 9% of the total sales of Dubai duty-free shops. Dubai receives more than 20 million tourists a year.
The coverage of travel retail channels is just to meet the needs of regional and international tourists, and it can also be seen that they are concerned about the e-cigarette consumption market in this field.
In addition, giants like Philip Morris International are also deploying e-cigarettes in the Middle East. For example, since last year, Philip Morris International has launched Iqos Iluma Prime in Dubai duty-free stores in the Middle East.
In the Middle East and North Africa, the market size involves 140 million adult smokers. The ANDS co-founders also stated, “We continue our journey to reach the 140 million adult smokers in the MENA region and provide them with better alternatives with the potential to reduce harm compared to combustible cigarettes.”
At present, the main e-cigarette markets in the Middle East are concentrated in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, and the markets in Egypt and Morocco in Africa near the Middle East, which are worthy of attention
